


Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven... Sneeze?

by GhostofBambi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, New Year's Eve, New Year's Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21760228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostofBambi/pseuds/GhostofBambi
Summary: The countdown is on to midnight, and this strange boy is not to be sniffed at.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 42
Kudos: 573





	Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven... Sneeze?

**Author's Note:**

> Have a New Year's oneshot on me! I have sneezing fits on a daily basis, so thank you to myself for inspiring this.
> 
> Happy 2020!!!!

**Ten**

"There'll be other kids your age there," Lily's mum had promised.

Grace also made claims like, "I think you'll have a great time" and "it'll be nice to spend New Year's together, just the two of us," with a buttery false cheer that stirred her daughter's sympathies and won her the agreement she wanted.

But Lily has been inside this house—this huge, sprawling, unnecessarily luxurious mansion—for nearly an hour and has met not a single "kid her age," though there may well be others, equally bored, who have hidden themselves away in its vastness. Many of her mother's colleagues have indeed brought their children to the party, but those children are truly _children_ in the most literal sense; waist-height, hyperactive, dimpled little demons who can expel missiles of snot from their cute button noses with the speed and force of an AK-47.

Lily is not having a great time.

She _could_ be having fun, could have spent her night with Beatrice, could have ignored her guilt and left her recently divorced mother to endure the holiday with no immediate family for support, but she just _had_ to go and be decent.

And for all of that, she now cannot locate her mum, who was whisked away by their generous hostess when Lily's back was turned.

Nor can she find the toilet.

On the other hand, she did stumble into a home cinema room at one point—not that she can settle in for a cosy screening of _Hercules_ with all of this hullabaloo going on—so, y'know, there's that.

Lily is seventeen years old, young and vital, with a whole future ahead of her, and she's been resigned to ringing in a brand new decade by herself, abandoned by her mother, fretful and lonely and angry in a way that feels a lot more like Petunia, not her.

Oh well, she supposes, she _is_ Petunia's little sister. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before the bitterness took her in this way, before the sweet taste of her life turned wholly sour.

She might as well just lean into it; she's got nothing better to do.

A girl ought to start as she means to go on.

**Nine**

Lily does not find her mother, but a man named Les finds Lily, accosting her on the patio like he's Giacomo Casanova at a lavish masquerade ball, desperate to speak to any woman under twenty, though he's shamelessly three times her age at least.

Les works in Sales, like "blinking Belinda," he tells her (with a wink, incidentally, not a blink), whatever that's supposed to mean.

Much like her mother, Les is another divorcee.

He's also on the hunt, so it would seem, for a Lolita porn experience at his employer's New Year's Eve party.

And definitely, _definitely_ lying about the speedboat.

"She gets a hundred miles to the gallon on open water," he's parroting on, still on the boat—or his dick, perhaps, given how excited he became when firmly assured that Lily is truly only seventeen years old—when Lily falls victim to a bout of repetitive sneezing.

It's a familiar sneezing fit, the kind where she can feel the next one coming as she is mid-sneeze with the current.

For the tenth time in a minute, she reminds herself that she _could_ be at Bea's house right now, not trapped on this patio with Lecherous Les, who cares for naught but his shiny fake speedboat and would probably try to barter a tissue for sex.

"And of course I eat whatever I catch, cook it right there on the beach," her captor is saying, when finally—nine sneezes in—he becomes aware of her struggle. "I can take you out to—ah. Oh dear." He moves a step closer to Lily and places his hand on her upper arm. His grip is too firm and too familiar. "Do you have a cold?"

Lily sneezes. "No." Moves a step away. Sniffs. Presses the back of her hand to her very drippy nose. "Allergic."

"To what?"

"To you," she says, and sneezes again, and boldly runs away.

 _Salvation,_ she thinks. _Hoo-rah._

**Eight**

Except her victory is very short-lived, because the incessant sneezing continues in cartoon fashion until Lily is at the end of her wits, with two ticklish nostrils and a face as red as her hair. Her nose leaks, she has no tissues in her purse, and the surrounding, schwasty party goers watch her in amusement, but also in mild disgust. Salvation is long gone; now is the deluge.

Intent upon escape, she pushes her way through the throng and winds up alone in the entrance hall. Several doors wait silently at her disposal, and Lily chooses the one which sits furthest from the merriment, scurrying across the floor with her wrist pressed to her nose.

She finds herself in a dark room and flicks on the light.

She's standing in somebody's office.

Somebody's sleek, modernist, "cutting-edge decor" home office.

More importantly, said someone keeps a box of tissues on their glass writing desk. With another frantic sneeze, Lily zips across the room and snatches up a handful, into which she buries her nose with a rumbling hum of contentment.

Ah. Salvation.

But she sneezes with violent gusto.

And again.

And _again._

Incensed, she swipes the tissues quickly across her nose and straightens up, determined to end this for good.

"Banana," she says aloud, and as firmly as possible.

"Why are you randomly shouting 'banana' in my mum's office?" the walls immediately respond.

Lily jumps half out of her skin and spins around on her heel, though it is not a ghost in the walls who has come to haunt her tonight, but a boy—a teenage boy, a tall one, the elusive "kid her age," at last—who hops up from where he has been sitting on the floor this whole damn time. A handheld Nintendo Switch console hangs loosely from his left hand.

He's...he's beautiful.

 _So_ beautiful.

His beauty in itself is rather startling, because Lily only came here for a tissue, not a sudden paroxysm of hormones and shock. He's all cheekbones and long limbs and wild, jet black hair, staring at her with an unveiled mixture of hostility and surprise on his face.

Which is beautiful. _Christ._ Why here? Why _now?_

Naturally, because he _is_ so very beautiful, and because she's still in an embarrassed, irritated lather over the sneezing, Lily's immediate, knee-jerk impulse is to treat him with belligerent sarcasm.

What else is she to do, sensibly explain her predicament?

"Why are you saying 'my mum's office,'" she retorts, scrunching the wad of tissues into a ball within her fist, "as if the location makes it more offensive somehow?"

"Because it _is_ my mum's office and what you're doing is weird."

"As weird as finding you crouching in here in the dark?"

"It's _my_ mum's office, my house, and you're the one creeping around like a criminal," he offers flatly, "not me."

The implication chafes, and Lily narrows her bright green eyes in a glare. "I wasn't robbing her, if that's what you think."

"Suppose a robber wouldn't yell about fruit," he slings back.

"Speaking aloud isn't yelling."

"And it's not _not_ stealing, either."

"Okay, Charles Boyle," Lily scoffs, "well done, you cracked the case—"

The boy yelps like a wounded dog, eyes widening in utter disbelief behind his glasses. "I'm not _Boyle!"_

"I was stealing this stack of post-it notes," Lily continues, picking up the nearest thing to hand and waving it in a taunt, "because post-it notes fetch _such_ a high price on the black market. I'm clearly a hardened criminal who specialises in going to parties with her mum and swiping valuable office supplies from the host."

"I am a Jake," says the boy, with the tight, suppressed aggression of a man facing off with the person who murdered his children, "not a Boyle."

"You're really not a Jake."

"I really _am_ a Jake."

"You are less like Jake Peralta than anyone I've ever met in my life, honestly."

"I _am_ a Jake, how would _you_ even know—"

"You're a Hitchcock," Lily loudly declares, with a feeling of savage pleasure. "I've downgraded you. You're a Hitchcock and I'm done with you and I'm leaving. Here," she adds, tossing the stack of post-its at him as she walks towards the door. "Take these into evidence, why don't you?"

He catches the stack with his free hand and gapes at her in dismay, but Lily sweeps through the door with a smirk on her face and does not look back at him once.

**Seven**

Lily manages to find the bathroom, wash her hands and dab her face clean. Then she resumes her search for her mother, carefully avoiding the office lest she be wrongfully accused of more nefarious misdeeds.

But as luck would have it, her new adversary has left the office too.

She spots him in what looks like a games room within minutes, where he appears to have shepherded most of the younger kids into a small, yet vaguely intimidating gang of screaming, thuggish gymnasts. Several of those kids are attempting to climb his wiry body like a jungle gym while others kick and bellow and launch themselves at him at speed, but he laughs along and seems to encourage the chaos.

Watching him play with the kids is kind of charming.

It's cute that he's making time for them.

It's cute that he took such offence to being labelled a Boyle.

It's cute that he's... _there?_

But Lily finds all these thoughts most unwelcome, so she makes sure to look disapproving when he eventually looks up and catches her leaning against the frame of the door. 

To her surprise, he detaches a pigtailed demon from his shoulders and strides across the room to face her.

"You again," he says, coming to a halt, and folds his arms across his chest.

She slants a tight, unfriendly smile at him in response. "Me again."

"Come to sling a few more insults my way?"

"Planning on any more slander?"

"Depends on whose private possessions I catch you sticking your fingers into next."

"You know, my mum _said_ I'd meet other people my age here," she informs him, derision aplenty, "but all I see are children."

"Hah hah," he says dryly.

"I know, I _am_ hilarious."

"I'll have you know that I'm like a god to these kids."

"Yeah because they're four years old," she points out. "They'd worship a milkshake if I told them they were supposed to."

His lips twitch as if he might laugh, but curl into a knowing smirk instead. "A banana flavoured milkshake?"

"Well done, you're a real genius," she intones. "I can't believe you've not been headhunted by Mensa."

The boy pulls a face, and Lily smugly departs, determined to have the last word in both of their arguments tonight.

He follows her, because he's clearly not on board with that plan.

"What's your problem with me, anyway?" he asks, drawing level with Lily as she makes it to the dining room, which has its own bar and therefore houses most of the guests.

She laughs loudly, unkindly, and jostles an amorous couple in her haste to finally escape him. "Um, you accused me of _stealing?"_

"You were lurking around my mum's office, what did you expect me to think?"

"Right, because nobody anywhere _ever_ needed a moment of privacy for any reason other than crime." She stops and spins around quickly, forcing him to take an awkward, staggered backwards step when he finds himself close to a collision. "I only went in there because I was in the middle of a sneezing fit and looking for a tissue, but I couldn't find your bathroom. The reason I said 'banana' is because _saying_ 'banana' out loud is a trick to make you _stop_ sneezing, which I _did,"_ she stiffly finishes, "and then you accused me of theft. Are you all caught up now, finally?"

"Well—" The tense, taut line of his shoulders seems to loosen as he digests the last of this informational soundbyte. "Does that _really_ stop you from sneezing?"

"Sometimes," says Lily, to which he immediately begins to pinch the bridge of his nose. "What are you doing?"

 _Pinch. Pinch. Pinch. Pinch. Pinch._ "Trying to sneeze."

"Why?"

 _Pinch. Pinch. Pinch._ "So I can see if your thing works." _Pinch. Pinch._

"It's not my thing, it's the internet's thing, and you can't _make_ yourself sneeze, they're caused by particles in your nasal cavity, so unless you're planning to inhale the contents of a vacuum bag, I don't see how—"

With a gasp like a scandalised, pearl-clutching granny, he sneezes directly in her face.

**Six**

"I'm so sorry!" the boy cries, springing out at Lily as she exits the—now familiar—bathroom with a clean face and her dignity barely restored.

She has not said a word to him since she stormed out of the dining room, ignoring his many frantic apologies and leaving him to contemplate the full weight of his crimes like the deviant he is, but he must have followed and waited for her to be done.

Unless he's a phenomenal actor, it looks as if he's genuinely upset about what he did.

Considering that Lily is the one who had mucus mist sprayed all over her face, and that she's the one who should be upset by rights, his contrition is more than a little annoying.

"Leave me alone," she commands, pushing past him.

"No, really!" He remains in hot pursuit. "I know we were sniping at each other before—"

"Don't care!"

"But I really _am_ sorry!"

"I said I don't care!"

"For Christ's sake, it's not like I _meant_ to do it!"

"Except you did, because you were literally _trying_ to make yourself sneeze!"

"Trying to make myself _need_ to sneeze so I could try the banana thing," he presses on, "but then it came on too fast and I couldn't stop it and I'm— _shit!"_ Lily has picked up her pace, and the panic in his voice wobbles harder. "I'm eternally sorry, I mean it!"

He can try all he likes, but Lily is not prepared to stop and turn around.

She doesn't care how sorry he sounds.

Or how fit he is.

Except...oh, fuck it, she _does_ care. There is nothing else even remotely amusing at this party and he's the only person her age. She stops and turns around. She's weak.

And he is so, so, so, _so_ attractive.

"Eternally sorry?" she repeats.

"Er?" he says, his hand leaping to tangle in his untidy mane of black hair. His wide eyes and obvious bewilderment tells her that he really hadn't expected her to stop. "Yes?"

"So you'll feel just as sorry as you do now in like, twenty years?"

"I mean...probably not?" he ventures, his tone wary, "but I can tell my mates about it if you want because they definitely won't let me forget it. My friend Sirius could dine out on that for twenty years, no problem. Maybe forty, he lives to plague me, and—oh, you could have it put on my gravestone when I die!" he adds, his eyes lighting up at the prospect. "That's an idea, yeah? Here lies James 'middle name redacted' Potter, who once sneezed in a girl's face and never ever _ever_ lived it down."

"It's... _an_ idea," she agrees, slightly stunned by the inclusion of "middle name redacted" and struggling to hold back a laugh.

"I mean, the inscription is really up to you, I'm just making suggestions."

"Boiling your whole life down to one sneeze is pushing it a bit far, don't you think?" says Lily. "Who'd want to be seen mourning at a grave like that?"

"The cashiers at Hobbycraft, maybe?"

"Hobbycraft?"

"I spend most of my allowance there," he explains, shrugging. "On art supplies. So they'd probably miss me."

"You're an artist?"

"I mean, sort of, but I'm not _an_ artist—not a real one," he tells her, though he's talking quite fast and her implied acceptance of his apology does not appear to have lessened his anxiety. "My paintings aren't in galleries and I don't have a drinking problem and I'm not tortured or anything, but I do draw and paint and make things, and I'm really, _really_ sorry for calling you a thief and sneezing in your face. I only meant to do one of those things, but both of them were wrong."

Lily cannot find the strength to hold back her laughter this time, and it draws from him a tentative, crooked half-smile.

"I suppose I was a bit mean to you in your mum's office," she benevolently concedes, startled to find herself blushing.

"Oh no, you should've been. I was hoping that you were a thief."

"Why?"

"Because then I could catch you red-handed and be a big hero and finally win the respect of my cat?"

She laughs again. It's hot in this hallway. "You think your cat doesn't respect you?"

"He doesn't respect anyone really, but he is _my_ cat, so it'd be nice to get some preferential treatment."

"That's—I love cats," she tells him, latching onto this disrespectful feline of his because if she doesn't, he might consider his apology a job well done and return to the kids, but she'd rather keep him here a while longer, and that feels like a rug being pulled out from under her feet. "How long have you had him?"

"Mum gave him to me when I turned fourteen, so it'll be four years in March," he recounts. "Even when he was a kitten, he was plotting against me. He does this thing where he stares at me like I'm garbage when I try to confide in him about my problems."

"You talk to your cat about your problems?"

"If Algernon could talk, I'd happily play therapist for him, but all _he_ does is blame me for my problems."

"He's got a point, you _do_ sneeze on girls."

"One girl," he reminds her, holding up a finger. "I've sneezed on _one_ girl, and I'm already making a New Year's resolution to never speak to another for as long as I live so don't worry, I've got that covered."

"Another what? Girl? Cat?"

"Might as well give up on both. My track record with either isn't great."

"That's a silly resolution. How are you meant to improve without practice?"

"I'm not—I'm going to be a hermit and live in a dusty old attic with my paints and my sketches and some sort of weird collection—like hairballs," he adds, pointing right at her as if she's given him the idea, "or snapped elastic bands. It'll give me plenty of time to work on being tortured."

"Oh, I see," says Lily knowingly, tugging on a lock of hair that falls over her shoulder. "So it was all for the sake of the art, in the end?"

"People prefer artists who struggled. That's just science."

"Well maybe your cat knows that, and that's why he treats you the way he does."

"See, _now_ you've gone and mixed him up with my mother," he says, with a slow shake of his head. "That sneeze has you all confused."

"That's not my fault, I've only met one of them!" Lily points out. It appears that they are standing closer together than they were when she first stopped, but she isn't sure how or when it happened. "Is your cat in the house right now?"

"Yeah, he's shut up in my room. Mum said he has to stay there because he alienates people."

"Alienates them how?"

"By viciously attacking them, usually."

"Okay, well now I _have_ to meet him, so you're gonna have to show me where your room is."

It's a bold, brave, unnerving shot out of nowhere and Lily is quite surprised by her own behaviour, though not as surprised as the boy before her. The smile slides from his face like water, replaced in an instant with a series of stuttering blinks.

"What?" he manages to cough out after a silent five seconds. "Seriously?"

Lily makes a noise of assent and shrugs so that she might look casual. "He sounds like someone with wisdom to share."

"No, but I mean, _you"_ —he points at her, and his tone is most disbelieving—"as a human girl, want to go into _my_ room?"

"I mean, much as I'd _love_ to go in there as a deer, I'm lacking the necessary magical transformation abilities." She lifts her hands briefly and drops them both down by her sides. "So I'm afraid I'll have to come just as I am."

"Come as you are," he repeats faintly. "I—yeah, okay."

She raises a questioning eyebrow. "Okay?"

"Okay," he repeats, "but I have to check that everything's tidy up there first, so just wait here and I'll be right down."

"Are you sure?"

"Right down," he repeats. "Cross my heart."

**Five**

"This is witchcraft."

"No, it's not."

"You've hoodwinked him."

"I really haven't."

"Then how do you explain this?" To his credit, James _sounds_ convincingly bewildered. "I've never seen him like this with anyone else."

"As you can't seem to stop pointing out."

"Because it's _true!"_

"Is it, though?" Lily glances up at James, much as it pains her to tear her gaze away from the fluffy ginger tomcat who squats with pomp and dignity in her lap, and even now is preening in her periphery. "Because it seems to me as if you're trying a bit _too_ hard to make me feel special."

Much as it might pain her, if she didn't like looking at his owner so much.

It was love at first sight for Lily from the moment she set eyes on Algernon. 

Happily—she can confirm, a dozen pettings and snuggles and purrs of contentment later—he seems to feel the exact same way about her.

James, however, meets her suspicion with a look of flat disbelief. "What would be my motive if I was?"

"Um, remember when you sneezed all over my face?"

"Are you _ever_ gonna let that go?"

"Weren't you the one who was _eternally_ sorry not thirty minutes ago?"

"An eternity can be contained within a single moment," says James, leaning snugly against his headboard with his hands behind his head. His legs are stretched straight out across his bright red duvet, and it mystifies Lily that she feels so compelled to reach out and touch any part of him— _any_ part, she's not fussed—just to see if he'd like it. "Shakespeare said that once."

"I really don't think he did."

"He said a lot of things, Lily, you can't say he didn't for certain," he counters. "Ask Mum if you don't believe me."

"About Shakespeare or your cat?"

"Algernon, of course—that's where my honour's at stake."

"I'm not interrupting your mother in the middle of her party to ask her inane questions about your cat," Lily scolds. "You have to swear it if you want me to believe you."

"Swear on what?"

"On something that really, really matters to you personally."

"Like my dear old great aunt Sylvia?"

"Does your dear old great aunt Sylvia really exist?"

"No," he admits, grinning widely at her, while Algernon—who isn't happy that his owner is biting chunks out of his precious one-on-one time—gives Lily's hand a hard nudge with his head. "Can I swear on my hair?"

Lily returns her attention to the cat, which is safer for everyone all round. "Why your hair?"

"May I immediately go bald if I'm lying."

"Right, but _why_ your hair?"

"Because my hair is _the_ most beautiful part of what I think we can all agree is a beautiful overall package."

"Who are 'we all'?"

"You, me and Algernon."

"Algernon prefers _me,_ loser."

"Because of witchcraft, we've established this."

"I really do hope you go bald."

**Four**

"This bed is _the_ most comfortable bed I've ever met," sighs Lily, mostly submerged in a pile of fat grey cushions.

"I know."

"I think lying here for five minutes might have, like, taught me the meaning of life."

"That bed's my second brother and my fourth best friend. No joke."

"How do you manage to get up and do things in the morning?"

"Dunno, Mum drags me out and sprays me with cold water?" James suggests, much to her amusement. While she sinks into a stupor on his bed, he sits in the spinny chair by his desk, resting his feet on the bed frame. Algernon is dozing peacefully in his lap. "You know that feeling you get when you watch a video of kittens playing, or soldiers coming home to their dogs after the war?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm pretty sure my mum had my mattress _made_ from that feeling."

Lily giggles at the joke, her eyes tracing the outlines of some peeled-off, star-shaped stickers that somebody must have scraped from his ceiling. "D'you think your mother would mind if I moved in, effective immediately?"

"Definitely not, she'd love to have a woman in the house. It's Sirius you'd have to deal with."

"Who's Sirius?"

"My best mate. First brother—not my _real_ brother, but my parents adopted him last year and he's lived with us ever since," James explains, "but he decided to spend New Year's with his uncle, which he _claims_ is because Alphard's getting older and doesn't have much time left, but I know for a fact that he wanted an excuse to duck out of the party."

"Lucky Sirius, I suppose."

"Traitor Sirius, more like," James grumbles. "Running out on me in my hour of need."

"At least he didn't beg you to come with him and abandon you the second you got through the door." Lily props herself up on her elbows to give James a pointed look, and gets a sympathetic smile in response, "which is what my mother did to me tonight."

"That's really shitty," says James. "She shouldn't have done that."

"Eh, she's been really off since the divorce was finalised, and then my sister flat-out refused to come home for Christmas and broke her heart," Lily recalls, strangely comfortable with letting this relative stranger know her personal business, "so I can't be _too_ pissed off, but still."

"Why wouldn't your sister come home?"

"Because she's angry, I think? Mum's the one who asked for the divorce, so Petunia's basically blaming her for the whole thing. She said that Mum wasn't trying hard enough to value her husband, that Christmas isn't a time for broken families, so she spent it with her boyfriend's parents in Surrey."

"That's miserable."

"She wouldn't even phone my mum on Christmas Day. We got a group text."

"What did it say?"

"'Merry Xmas from P.'"

"Xmas?" He pulls a face of disgust. "That's rough, even for your sister, who sounds kind of—"

"Kind of like a dickhead?"

James chokes out a rather startled laugh, his hand jumping to ruffle his hair. That's a habit of his, it seems. "I was going to say 'unpleasant,' but…"

"But," Lily repeats, "if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, my sister's probably a major dickhead."

His next laugh is a breathless, pleasanter sound. "Families, yeah?"

"More trouble than they're bloody worth."

"Dear old great aunt Sylvia wouldn't do us like this."

Lily beams at him, relieved by the shift of subject to something lighter. "Dear old great aunt Sylvia is _the best."_

"Gives you fifty pound notes for your birthday."

"Makes homemade cakes and _always_ let you stay up late when you were a kid."

"Doesn't threaten to rehome your cat when you piss her off."

"Doesn't discuss your menstrual cycle with your next door neighbour, Bernice," says Lily darkly, "even though that's really inappropriate."

"Sylvia doesn't say 'I'm not angry, just disappointed,' when you know that she really _is_ angry, just because she knows you'll feel like a total piece of shit if she does." 

"Sylvia doesn't make shocking racist statements at the dinner table, because Sylvia knows that being old doesn't grant you an excuse to be a dick."

"Ah, dear old great aunt Sylvia," James exhales, and touches his hand to a chest. "One of a kind, that woman."

"May she rest in eternal peace."

**Three**

**Mum:** Where are you sweetheart??

 **Lily:** I'm upstairs.

 **Mum:** Why upstairs?

 **Lily:** Got a really bad headache and it's quieter up here.

 **Mum:** Oh my sweet baby.  
I'm sorry that I've been so busy all night.  
Do you need me to bring you anything?

 **Lily:** Noooooooo I'll be okay.

 **Mam:** Do you think you'll feel better by midnight?

 **Lily:** Not sure but I'll try!  
Can you ask your boss's wife if I can have a lie down in one of the rooms, please?

 **Mam:** Of course baby, give me a mo x

*****

**Lily:** HELP ME I just met a boy.

 **Beatrice:** A boy or like, A Boy??????

 **Lily:** A Boy.

 **Beatrice:** Boy oh boy

 **Lily:** Be serious please.

 **Beatrice:** LOL  
You still at that work party thing??

 **Lily:** YES and he's gorgeous and ridiculous and funny and his cat has adopted me on sight and I've told my mum I'm ill so we can hide in his bedroom all night and his dad is my mum's BOSS somehow???  
Is that even allowed?  
Are there rules for situations like this?  
Has there been a tribunal?  
Could I potentially land my mother in trouble by thirsting after her boss's firstborn son?

 **Beatrice:** This is prime spice, tbh

 **Lily:** STOP IT I'm serious.

 **Beatrice:** So am I!  
There's nothing hotter than vaguely putting your mum's career at risk, but also NO of course it's allowed who'd make a rule like that get a grip?  
What's Prince Charming's name?

 **Lily:** James Potter.

 **Beatrice:** He on Facebook?

 **Lily:** I haven't been able to check for obvious reasons, but he's super tall and he's got black hair and glasses.  
And a dimple.  
Left side. Only.  
And really good teeth.  
Like, really good.  
Oh and he's got, like, proper thick eyebrows.  
And he might have a really big ginger cat in his profile photo.

 **Beatrice:** Will search and send pics and render verdict, pls standby

*****

**Mum:** Euphemia says feel free to have a lie down upstairs

 **Lily:** Thank you mama x

*****

**Beatrice:** _(Photo Attachment)_  
Is this him?

 **Lily:** Hang on, he's drawing on me right now, have to make sure he doesn't see.

 **Beatrice:** ?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!  
Drawing on you WHERE??

 **Lily:** Stomach.

 **Beatrice:** YOU'RE NAKED?!?!?!?!

 **Lily:** NO  
JESUS  
BEATRICE  
I'm wearing a crop top you idiot.

 **Beatrice:** But why is he drawing on you?

 **Lily:** Because he's really good at drawing and I asked him to.

 **Beatrice:** Omg flirt  
Strumpet  
Scarlet woman

 **Lily:** Shut up.

 **Beatrice:** Look at the damn picture already Christ

 **Lily:** Hang on.

 **Beatrice:** Hurry up ffs I have plans for April

 **Lily:** Yes!!  
That's him!

 **Beatrice:** Oooooooh okay good good good y y y  
He's very cute

 **Lily:** ISN'T HE?

 **Beatrice:** I mean not my type  
But objectively a hottie  
I approve on a probationary basis

 **Lily:** LOL probationary.

 **Beatrice:** I'll make up my mind for good when I meet him in person

 **Lily:** And how am I supposed to make that happen?

 **Beatrice:** Grab his dick

 **Lily:** No.

 **Beatrice:** Lick his ear suddenly

 **Lily:** No.

 **Beatrice:** Combine a lock of your hair with a lock of his and boil it in the blood of a noble steed beneath the glow of a pale full moon

 **Lily:** No.

 **Beatrice:** Then fuck it, I'm out of ideas

 **Lily:** I'm just going to ask him for his number.

 **Beatrice:** Yeah good call, that's defs what I'd do

**Two**

"Do you know anyone called Les?" she asks him later.

There's just over an hour to go until the dawn of a new decade, and so many things have happened.

Lily has flipped—gleefully—through every picture in James's beautiful, jam-packed portfolio, and let him read a short story she's working on in her spare time. He devoured it with enthusiasm, declared her a genius for the ages and drew an intricately decorated, multi-coloured love heart on her stomach with some Sharpie fine point pens.

She and James are still shut up in his room, and the addition of provisions has made it so that Lily has zero motivation to leave, or ever want to. His mother, Euphemia, crept upstairs and discovered them shortly after ten, but she didn't seem to mind that they were together and went downstairs, returning minutes later with a large tray of goodies and a bottle of Buck's Fizz for them to share. They've been having a perfectly lovely time of it since, sitting side-by-side on his bed and watching old episodes of _Frasier,_ which James has recently discovered and become obsessed with.

When James rolled to the edge of his bed to drop a prawn on the floor for Algernon, Lily got a good, long look at his arse.

The outside of her arm is brushing the outside of _his_ arm.

They have accidentally touched hands— _twice_ —while reaching for the popcorn.

She could not conceive a more blissful New Year's Eve experience.

"Les?" James repeats, glancing at her sideways. "No, why?"

"He's about fifty-five, works for your parents in Sales," Lily explains. "He was sexually harassing me earlier."

James's hand, which is reaching for a bowl of M&Ms, promptly freezes. "I'm sorry, _what?"_

"I was a lot less shocked than you seem to be."

"He was sexually harassing you _here?"_

"Yup."

"Did he know what age you are?"

"Told him twice."

"And that your mum's here?"

"Didn't put him off."

"But that's so _wrong!"_ James cries. "What the hell is he doing, trying to pick up teenage girls at a work party when he must know that one of your parents— _oh!"_ He sits up with a start, immediately upsetting the M&Ms, which spill out across the duvet in a desperate bid for freedom. "Want me to get him fired?"

"Get him _what?"_

"Fired. I'm dead serious."

"Relax, Peralta, I'm fine." Lily pulls him back down, giggling. "You can't fire some guy for being creepy."

 _"I_ can't," James admits, settling back against his headboard with a dull thud, "but my father definitely could."

"If your father sacked someone because you asked him to, he'd be slapped with an unfair dismissal suit in five minutes flat."

"It's not unfair dismissal if he sexually harasses women in the workplace."

"It didn't happen in the workplace."

"Workplace party, same difference."

"Except _I'm_ not one of his colleagues."

"You're the teenage daughter of his colleague, which is just as bad," James supplies. "If not worse."

"By all means, tell your dad if you want to, the guy shouldn't get away with creeping on teenage girls—"

"He definitely shouldn't," says James emphatically. "Does that happen to you a lot?"

"A bit. My friend Beatrice has it worse," says Lily. "She's a lot prettier than I am—"

James makes an odd sound in the back of his throat.

"—so she gets a lot more attention, but I've dealt with plenty of creeps. Most women have."

"How do you deal with them normally?"

"I, um…" An evil little notion pops up in the forefront of her mind. "I talk incessantly about my boyfriend."

She doesn't risk looking away from the television, but James's voice tightens up as if he has something stuck in his throat. "You've got a boyfriend?"

"His name is Robert and he's two years older than me and he wants to be a doctor," Lily recites, and shifts herself a fraction down the mattress to get comfortable, sinking further into the pillows. "Totally made-up, of course, but it's good to have your fake boyfriend pre-arranged so you can answer questions about him and _not_ look like you're lying."

"So...so you don't have a boyfriend, or you do?"

"What?" she says faintly, turning her head to look at him with calculated, doe-eyed innocence. It's a wonder that she hasn't turned bright red. "Oh, no I don't. Not at all."

The look on his face is rather difficult to decipher. "But pretending to have one usually works?"

"Not all the time, but definitely more than saying no outright."

"Huh," says James. He frowns thoughtfully at the television, his head tilting to one side as if in question. "Right."

That, Lily feels, is pushing it enough for the time being, so she picks up a handful of popcorn and shifts her attention to the telly, and several minutes pass in companionable silence.

"I don't have a girlfriend," James remarks presently, a seemingly unwarranted announcement.

Lily keeps her gaze trained on the television with ease, but biting back a smile is much harder.

**One**

"It's all a bit...anticlimactic, isn't it?"

"Yeah," James agrees. "If an entire nation is counting down from ten at the same time, there should at least be something that happens when they're finished."

"Something aside from fireworks."

"And people getting pissed on champagne."

"I don't get the whole New Year's thing anyway," says Lily, watching from the window as James's father and a few others set up for the firework display in the garden. The plan is for the guests to enjoy the display from the sprawling lawn at the back of the house come midnight, but she and James are yet to leave his room. "What are we even celebrating, besides a last ditch attempt to hold on to Christmas?"

"That the earth completed an orbit around the sun?"

"The earth's been doing that for billions of years."

"But never beating its times."

"You'd think with all that practice, the year would be over in August by now."

"Global warming's slowing it down," James concludes, though he sounds quite detached, like his mind is elsewhere. "That must be it."

"Must be," says Lily, and wants to say something else, something dazzling and witty, but she's distracted by the text message that pings through on her phone. "Oh, for Christ's sake."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, but I think my mum's plastered."

"What's she saying?"

The text is the work of a very tipsy woman, with random flag emojis, misspelled words and seventeen exclamation marks in a row, but the instructions it contains are clear nonetheless. "She wants me to come downstairs for midnight."

"Do you want to go down?"

"Not really, but she _is_ my mum. At the very least I should be with her for the countdown."

"Makes sense," James sighs. "My parents have each other, so Mum probably doesn't mind, but she'll pretend she does tomorrow for the sake of being dramatic."

"Suppose we should go down, then?"

"Uh, yeah. You go," he bids her. "I'll follow you after, otherwise Mum will make a big show of kissing her baby boy in front of everyone down there, and then there'll be lipstick all over my face and nobody wants that."

She's not quite sure if he's joking or not—his tone is rather one note. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'll be down in a bit, just have to sort something."

"Alright," says Lily. "See you later?"

The smile he offers is a tight one. "See you later."

There doesn't seem much reason for her to linger, so Lily leaves his room with a wave for Algernon, who swishes his tail in farewell.

 _I'll be down in a sec,_ she texts her mother on her way down the stairs.

It delivers, but is not read.

Of course it wouldn't be read. Of course her mum has gone back to her drinking and merriment and fun. Of course Lily is the one stuck doing the thing she doesn't want.

She doesn't _want_ to be "down in a sec."

Nor does she want to push her way through a crowd of drunken adults, just to find the one drunken adult she actually knows.

She didn't want to go to this party. Didn't want the attention of middle-aged, lecherous creeps. Didn't want to be a grown woman's emotional crutch for the night, but her mother wheeled and begged, left her all by herself, had a grand old time without her daughter's help, and Lily's only saving grace is the boy she just left standing alone in his room.

So she turns and dashes back up the stairs.

She returns to James's room to find that he hasn't moved from the window, but he has his phone in hand, fingers flying across the screen as if he's typing something out with frantic urgency, so focused on what he's doing that he doesn't notice her there until she hops in front of him and slaps her hand down on the sill, which makes him jump and clutch his phone to his chest in fright.

"Lily," he says, blinking at her behind his specs. "What—"

"Why did you draw this?" she demands, pointing to the doodle on her stomach.

James drops his arms to his side and stares at the cheery little heart, his phone swaying limply in one hand. "What?"

"You could have drawn anything," she continues, and lays her hand flat across his drawing, protecting it from him, lest he give her an answer she doesn't want to hear. "I didn't specify what I wanted, you could have drawn a cat or a banana or an intricate map of Bolivia—"

"Bolivia?"

"—but you drew a heart and I want to know _why."_

"Right," says James, and sets his phone down on the sill. His cheeks are starting to flush. "But...Bolivia, Lily?"

"Please don't change the subject—"

"You brought it up!"

"Can you just answer the question?" she snaps, thrusting her closed fists towards the ground, punching at air in her frustration. "Mum pre-booked a taxi to pick us up at one and I might never see you again—"

"You—"

"—and I don't even have your number so this is a now or never question, I don't have _time_ to talk about Bolivia. Why did you draw a heart?"

"I don't—" He looks around the room for assistance, finds none, and shrugs helplessly. His face is very red now. "We're applying to the same uni."

"So?"

"So, of course we'll see each other again."

"Yeah, in _September,_ and that's if we both get in, which we might not, and are you _really_ okay with not seeing me again until then?"

"Of course not!" he yelps. "I don't want you to leave _now—"_

"So why can't you just _tell_ me—"

"Because I heart _you!"_ James cries, and immediately rocks backwards on his heels, his gaze dropping from her face to the floor. "I—that's why I drew it. The heart. I heart you and it's stupid and now you know." He shoves his hands in his pockets, staring with great determination at the carpet. "There."

A kaleidoscope of butterflies bursts forth in Lily's stomach, as colourful and vibrant as the pretty thing he doodled on her skin.

"You heart me?" she softly repeats.

"I heart you," James mumbles.

"What does that me—"

His head snaps up and his hands fly from his pockets. "Oh my _god!"_

"What?" says Lily, trying to sound innocent and ruining it with a burst of relieving laughter.

"You bloody well _know_ what it means!"

"Yeah, but the point is that I want _you_ to tell me," she implores, reaching out in search of his hand. James has moved past his fear of making eye-contact, but he's also looking at her as if he'd quite like to throw her out the window. "Preferably while standing on top of a mountain, or outside my bedroom window with a boombox, but—

He lets out a brief, choked laugh and snatches her outstretched hand up, his fingers interlocking gently with hers. "Don't ask for much, do you?"

"Well, you don't seem to want to explain it now, so I'm offering suggestions—"

"Where am I supposed to find a mountain at this time of night, when you have to leave in an hour?" he points out. "And besides, why can't you tell me first?"

"I ran back up here, didn't I?"

"To ask me to tell you how I feel—" 

"Why would I ask you to tell me how you feel if I didn't already feel the same?"

"I dunno," he says dryly, "I'm not _Robert—"_

"Robert's not even _real—"_

"—I'm not older than you, I don't want to be a doctor—"

"Doctors _never_ have free time and you can't see their arses with those long coats in the way and when _they_ draw on you, they're marking you up for surgery," Lily hotly interjects. "I like your arse and your drawings, not fake Robert's."

"I like your arse and your writing," he immediately counters.

"I like your hair."

"I like your hair _and_ your eyes."

"I like your hair and your eyes _and_ your arms."

"My arms?"

"It's a thing I have, don't judge me."

"Oh, I won't," he happily agrees. "But, y'know, while I'm happy to let you objectify my body all night—"

"I _just_ said—"

"—can I just point out that I like you _a lot,_ that you're gorgeous and brilliant and clever and funny—"

"So are you!" she cuts in. "I was literally texting my friend to tell her—"

"What d'you think I was doing just now?"

"Hiding in your room and not telling me how you feel?"

"I was _nervous,_ okay? You were leaving soon and I was terrified that I'd ruin it, so I was asking my friend Remus for advice because I _wanted_ you to know how I feel."

"There was a solution to that—just tell me."

"Well, I've bloody well told you now, haven't I?" He grins and tugs her toward him, so she moves to him willingly, releasing his hand to curl both of hers around the back of his neck. His find her hips and settle there, firm and snug, while a rumble of collective voices thrums faintly through the window. "Dunno what you're so worked up about. I think the countdown's about to start."

"Something good should really happen when that finishes, you know," Lily suggests, pushing herself up on her tiptoes.

"Something better than fireworks?"

"And people getting pissed on champagne?"

"I think I have an idea."

"You do?"

"Mmm," James agrees. Their noses are touching. "Nine, eight…"

"I don't think it's started just yet."

"Don't care. Seven."

She giggles softly. "Six."

"Five."

"Four."

"Three.

"Two."

"One," James murmurs, and covers her mouth with his.

It's a soft kiss, a slow kiss, warm and insistent and lovely, his hands cool and steady on her back, hers tangled in his thick, dark hair, pressing their bright new feelings into one another's lips— _gorgeous, brilliant, clever, funny, I like you, I like this, I heart you_ —and Lily doesn't know if they're in time with what's going on around them, if it's this year or the next, but she knows that this is what she wanted, that she's kissing a brilliant, clever, hilarious, beautiful boy who ruptures nests of butterflies in her belly, who was bold enough to offer up his heart in the space of a few short hours, soft enough to wait for her to take it, that she likes him, likes _this_. _I heart you._

There are fireworks spinning in the inky sky outside, but they've got _nothing_ on what's going on in here.

Wonderful. Splendid. Glorious. Truly. She fully intends to do much more of this.

A girl ought to start as she means to go on.


End file.
